Saturday, February 13, 2010

It is fabrication as only the religious can deliver. The premise is that we should be teaching alternative theories to evolution in our public schools, and we should stop bullying a minority of people that want to see other things being taught. I always get a kick out of Christians that claim persecution, it is just amazing to hear people make idiots of themselves. I'm all for alternative theories, but they have to be, you know, real theories.

I won't go into all the flaws with the movie, I'll just call out a few. First, teaching "intelligent design" in public schools is flat out unconstitutional. Period. The ID folks were thrown out of court, and the classroom, in Kitzmiller vs Dover. Their "new idea" or "alternative theory" of ID is nothing more than creationism repackaged; pseudoscience at best, illegal at least. Science does not accept "magic man done it" as an explanation, it treats it the same as we all should -- with dismissal. As the judge of the case summarized: ID is religion, and religion has not place in public classrooms. No matter how much you lie and break the law in attempts to include it.

Secondly, I oppose the way the ID folks are running their shop. If you want to change science, you have to do it like everyone else; you start in the lab, working within the realm of natural science. You don't start by adding wish based thinking to high school textbooks. Aside from being morally bankrupt, it is just not how science works. I know that the religious feel quite a lot of entitlement, but you have to play by the same rules as everyone else, if you don't, you have zero right to complain about consequences -- you don't get special treatment just because you're mentally handicapped. Theories are developed and tested in labs within the bounds of the scientific method; not involving delusional claims spawned from a church. Keep your religion to yourself, and out of science, thanks.

Third, I have to call shenanigans on the parallels drawn from evolution and Nazism. This is enough to make a cat laugh. It is nothing more than another attempt to throw mud while lacking an intellectual leg to stand on. What the fascists did in Nazi Germany, and what we are teaching in schools today, are two extremely different things. One demonstrates how nature has shaped our form over many years, the other shows how human can tamper with nature and change the outcome. Basically, one is nature driven, the other is human editing of the natural process to get unnatural results. To compare evolution with eugenics is to admit you are cracked, irrational, and willing to lie. Another baseless smear, a throw away line; no intelligence allowed indeed!

Also, like other documentaries, the producers and staff lied and misled to get material that suited their ideological purposes. In the same fashion as Michael Moore and Bill Maher, they are not interested in showing the clash of ideas, they are only interested in gathering ammunition for their point of view, and they are willing to go to immoral lengths to get it. People like PZ Meyers and Richard Dawkins, that appeared in the film, were tricked into appearing in the first place; then later escorted from a screening of the film! Yeah, they were tricked into appearing in the documentary, then booted from the showing of the movie. How is that for expelled? What happened to that open and honest philosophy that they won't stop talking about in the movie? It must be reserved strictly for those sharing the expressed view. Hypocrisy much guys? It further demonstrates the christian line of thinking -- our agenda above all other factors. Morals, laws, decency, all that stuff is forgotten in pursuit of their goals, and the ends will justify the means.

All in all, another fine piece of work from the crippled brains of the religious: False assertions about the reasons for people being fired, reframing of an issue to try to make it look legal, double standards and hypocrisy, dismissal of reality and facts, guilt by association fallacy (among others), lies and mischaracterizations about people and issues, all laced with a tone of imagined persecution and pleading to pity and emotions as well as a strong dose of do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do mentality. I'm sure it's a hit among some people lacking a pulse, for those of us with both feet planted on earth, it's worthy to watched once at best, then thrown directly into the trash -- or filed under "garbage" with the rest of the Discovery Institute's nonsense.